The Saga of the Fake Date
Note: The names in this story have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.
Tuesday
“Well, it’s horrifying!” my friend Adeline tells me in the car on a rainy Thursday night before my first date with a boy. She’s one of those people who pronounces an invisible “a” in horrifying, so it sounds more like “harrifying,” which for some reason makes it sound way worse. She’s also a self-proclaimed dating expert.
“Thank you; that’s reassuring,” I deadpan. “What should I do? How do I prepare for something like this?”
“Well, in this scenario, he’s probably gonna be nice to you, so you don’t have to manipulate him in any type of way.” Lana Del Rey’s single “A&W” plays softly in the background as rain pats soothingly and persistently on the windshield.
She’s advising me for this arrangement I made with this guy, Nev—We’re going on a pretend date. I’ve never been out with a guy in my entire life as a 20-year-old sophomore in college. I’m not a prude or anything like that, but I am a lesbian. For the past five-and-a-half years, I’ve actually been in a serious relationship with a girl.
My straight date is set for the upcoming Wednesday night. Adeline tells me how to dress and what to bring up in conversation to find out if he’s religious or has a weird relationship with his mother. It’s apparently a major point for him if he has an older sister.
“I’m studying what car they’re driving immediately,” Adeline emphasizes.
“Is Nev’s car a green flag or a reg flag?”
“Reg flag,” she announces, sure of herself. “He drives a drug dealer car.”
Dating a man is like a game—Adeline calls it a sport, actually.
Wednesday
There is no way I’m getting stood up on my first date. This is ridiculous. A woman would never. A text chime from Nev at 12:16 p.m. alerts me that we are no longer on for our date this evening. He gives no explanation other than a cryptic, “I can’t today :/ I promise I’m not making things up I feel extremely bad but yes tomorrow for sure.”
Cosmopolitan Magazine tells me my horoscope for March 15 is “not the day to be productive.” I guess not. They say I should “tune into the symbols and signs around me.” What? Like not dating men?
I peek ahead to March 16—The date has been reset to Thursday—and oh, God. Apparently “March 16 brings tons of hectic energy… Venus, the planet of love, collides with power planet Pluto, stirring up power struggles, jealousy, obsessions, and fixations regarding relationships with others” which is followed by “conflict and competition” and then—oh, hey—“bringing divine inspiration, knowledge, and information into your energetic field.” “Whew—what a day,” they write. Yeah, no kidding.
I decide to do a bit more research into the straight dating game. I expect to find almost nothing, but apparently, there are lots of lesbians who go on dates with men, according to articles I found in The Washington Post, Glamour, HuffPost, and GoMag, which are all equally compelling and terrifying.
Since middle school, I’ve known that I have an attraction to women. Not that I don’t notice men, but more like I don’t want to kiss them and can’t imagine futures with them. Any sort of emotion I feel toward a man is almost always stifled by what I blame to be compulsory heterosexuality. A spark of emotion doesn’t mean you’re straight or, but sexuality is a spectrum, and there’s a lot to consider when identity is so individualized.
The woman from Glamour who is also a 20-year-old lesbian crushing on a guy doesn’t persuade me, nor does the woman from Huffpost who “came out as a lesbian over a decade ago,” whose “dykehood has shaped much of (her) life,” and whose new “relationship has forced (her) to rethink her identity and navigate coming out all over again.”
OK, maybe what I’m getting into is a little bit more serious than I originally thought. Obviously, these experiences don’t make these women any less queer, but their articles do make this date feel slightly less ridiculous.
Growing up with amazing romance movies like Notting Hill, Romeo + Juliet (1996), Life As We Know It, Made of Honor, and so on and so forth, how am I supposed to pave my own path and make my own decisions? I’ve found that there is a growing vault of LGBTQ films that play on par with these classic straight films, like Jenny’s Wedding, Call Me By Your Name, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, But I’m A Cheerleader, and the list goes on.
At this point, I don’t see how my identity will change from this date, but I’m open to it nonetheless.
Thursday
After working a 7:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. shift at a coffee shop, I’m tired, hungry, and ready to get this date over with. Nev says he’s picking me up at 4:00 p.m.
I’m wearing a denim skirt, a grey baby T-shirt that makes my boobs look fantastic, and a new pair of platform Converse. I decorated my neck with a ScretlyPretty necklace and Blackberry and Bay perfume from Jo Malone. Before I left my house, I’d drawn on my signature smudge-proof red lip and my everyday winged liner on my eyes to complete the look.
Of course, Nev is late (something about oil for his car), and he arrives to pick me up at 4:31 p.m. To my surprise, he actually dressed in a nice open button-up, and he smells delicious. I give him a hug and tell him he looks great before we walk to his car.
He opens the door for me and presents me with tulips—my favorite flowers, in a pot—which probably set him back at least $7 or so. I am pleasantly surprised, and he even plays one of my Spotify playlists in the car on the drive to Irvine Spectrum.
We decide on a place to eat—The Cheesecake Factory—and talk about what movies we might want to see—Cocaine Bear? Scream VI?
He admits he isn’t used to going on dates and tells me he’s nervous about the night to follow, even though the date is supposed to be fake. I assure him I’m not expecting anything, but I’m not so sure that’s completely true. I spend much of the night nit-picking his decisions and comparing him to women.
He orders the SkinnyLicious Turkey and Avocado Sandwich ($12.50) because he’s on a health kick, and I order a Caesar salad ($13.95)—because I’m a lady, of course. Suddenly, everything begins feeling real. As we chit-chat about work and school and how we’re both left-handed, I begin perspiring ever so slightly and can sense both of us being awkward about how much butter we’re putting on our bread. He’s wearing rings—He never wears rings—and he fidgets with them while we talk. I didn’t expect to feel real first-date-nerves, even if they are superficial.
To my shock, he pays the bill, which is quite a sum for a fake date.
Twice, we separate to go to the bathroom, a feature of straight dates I had not thought about, considering my girlfriend and I just go together into the women’s bathroom.
He asks me if I want to walk around for a bit before the movie—I do—and he takes me to Barnes and Noble. If anyone wants to know the way to my heart, it’s got to be a walk through a bookstore I didn’t have to bribe whomever I’m with for.
We play his favorite game in the poetry section, where he flips aimlessly through a random book, and I have to tell him when to stop. Whatever page he lands on, he reads, and that will be our omen for the night. I pick out a book of haikus, and he flips through the pages.
“OK, stop,” I say when he’s a little over halfway through the pages.
“I tricked myself into thinking you left a darkness behind / But it was dark before you got here / This world —” He stops, laughing. “OK, Jesus, let’s pick a different one.”
The next one is much more encouraging and motivational. Now, it’s my turn. He picks his page.
“These are the things I no longer wish to understand,” I begin. “The earth is slowly dying because of how we treat it. / Cancer. / Christmas becomes more stressful and less magical the older you get. / Love is not always what it seems. / Loneliness is the loudest state of being. / People will leave you broken on the floor and blame the mess on you.”
“Damn,” he sighs. “Want to get a coffee?”
We share a Grande cold brew with one honey packet, and later on in the night, a cinnamon-sugar soft pretzel from Auntie Anne’s. At some point, our communication must waver. Suddenly, we’re walking back to the car while he tells me about how he used to steal as the front-end HR supervisor at Babies-R-Us. “What about the movie?” I think.
He drops me off at home and tells me to text him when I get inside safely. “What had gone wrong?” I wonder.
Saturday
“How was your date?” Adeline giggles as I clock in for my Saturday morning shift.
As I brew fresh cups of steaming coffee, turning them into liquid gold elixirs with thick, heavy cream and syrupy sweet brown sugar, I discuss my dissatisfaction with the ending of my night with Nev. “It was really weird. He just took me home. We ended up not seeing the movie. I guess I had fun otherwise—I don’t know.”
“You’re describing a completely normal date with a man,” Adeline says. “It’s really sad, but you’re always gonna be disappointed.”
I consider this. How sad, indeed. I had been swept up in the magic of our fake date and let myself get let down as if he hadn’t stood me up on Wednesday night and been 30 minutes late to pick me up on Thursday. How had I let myself become intoxicated by such an experience? Why hadn’t we gone to the movies? Did he forget? Did he not want to? Had I done something wrong?
I am left with more questions than answers, but I know that I don’t relate to the women from those articles I read with their newfound identities. I wasn’t left wanting more. He had been a gentleman, for sure. I’d had fun, absolutely. But I am still definitely, unwaveringly a lesbian. Sorry boys.
